Greetings to my honorable Ecotrain Community, it's been awhile since I came here to share my thoughts and experience with you all in this wonderful community. I've been pretty busy this period but we're family and we can connect at any time.
Today's post will focus on refuse disposal management in Nigeria and how it has increased health challenges for majority of the populations. It isn't a funny matter at all because health is wealth.
This post can into my mind as I visited my parents in Port Harcourt City, Nigeria two weeks ago and I saw several sites of refuse dumps and how tattered and unkept and even smelling. It amazes me how comfortable or healthy the air that people breathe in Port Harcourt City looks like.
I actually know that one of the fastest way of contracting illness is through the air and water. Unfortunately airborne diseases easily affects the respiratory system of an individual than other forms of contracting diseases.
Citizens and Refuse Disposal
Truth be told, wrongly disposal of refuse has been the culture of the day in Nigeria, this I can't say the direct cause of it. Probably, it's because of the poor refuse disposal management within the country. Citizens don't have specific days and time to dispose their refuse and refuse disposal vehicles aren't always available to pick up refuse from the disposal points.
There's no refuse separation techniques set by the government of the day. What I mean here is, there's no dimacation between perishable refuse and recycling materials such as cans, plastics, bottles and metals.
It should be noted that, all refuse in Nigeria is dumped in the same place and at the same time, which is very awful.
The right thing to do is to separate metals from plastic from home before taking them to the refuse dumps, but the reverse is the case in Nigeria.
Government should create time for different wastes to be disposed. For instance, if the government (through it's waste management authority) chooses Tuesdays and Fridays to dispose waste, then Tuesday should be for perishable waste, while Friday should be for metals and plastics.
With this in place, people will no longer find it difficult to dispose waste.
Another areas that Nigeria is lacking in waste management is in the area of exposing wastes. It's very few households that bag their waste. Remember that flies carries waste and perch on vegetables and other food crops sold in the Nigerian market. Most meat vendors in Nigeria exposes their products and this always welcomed flies. This inturn can lead to several diseases including cholera and dysentery, which has led to the death of many innocent Nigerians.
Government should encourage citizens to bag their waste before dumping them at the refuse disposal points.